


The Gaming Video.

by iamalwaystired



Series: dan and phil quarantine fics [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2020 compliant, DanAndPhilGAMES, Established Relationship, Fluff, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Quarantine, The Sims 4, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Weddings, but dnp talk about their wedding, like we in lockdown, making my dreams a reality, not dnp, the gaming channel is back, this was fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:55:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamalwaystired/pseuds/iamalwaystired
Summary: dan and phil decide to bring back the gayming channel with dab and evans wedding video. basically just fluff for 6k words,
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: dan and phil quarantine fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876726
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	The Gaming Video.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoy this fic, i had the idea in a dream, and I felt the need to share with the phandom

It was around 5pm on Friday August 14th, Phil Lester had decided to have a nap earlier, because he was kind of tired and he had nothing better to do. But Phil had never gotten to sleep, he was too busy thinking.Phil sat up in his bed, contemplating an idea. 

The idea to finally bring back the gaming channel.

He had thought about it before, but this time, he felt like it was time to bring it back, he was eager to make more content, and Dan’s project had officially been put on hold for a bit, and just in general he was hoping to make their fans happy. Phil had seen their reaction to finally getting a glimpse at the man that he loved with all his heart, Phil had also seen the reaction to Dan finally posting a picture of his lockdown curls. 

Phil also knew that Dan had really missed being on camera, and making content for the fans that were the reason that he was living in london, with the love of his life, and not some sad lawyer or something.

“I guess it's now or never,” Phil said to himself, rolling off of his side of the bed. He opened the door from their room and started to go upstairs.

Once Phil got to the door of the living room, he paused, and just admired the sight of his best friend, his soulmate, his fiance, looking very calm just playing animal crossing while sitting on the couch. While he was lingering in the doorway he brought up enough courage to talk to Dan about the thing that neither of them had properly talked about in almost 2 years.

“Hey babe,” Dan called from the couch, without turning around.

“How did you know that I was there?” Phil said walking over to the couch and plopping himself beside the curly-headed lad.

“I mean I could hear your footsteps coming down the hall,” Dan says leaning over to kiss Phil on the cheek before turning back to his game, “What is happening in your head right now?”

“Nothing much,” he paused, “actually, I’ve been thinking,” Phil trails off at the end of his sentence, not knowing how to continue.

Dan puts his controller down to turn to the man next to him, “Thinking about what?” He sounds like a mixture between concerned and confused.

“The gaming channel,” Phil mumbles.

“Oh right,” Dan says, taking Phil’s hand, “wanna talk about it?”

“Yea,” Phil knows that they both really miss the gaming channel, but Phil honestly doesn't know how Dan will feel about bringing it back. All Phil can hope is that Dan is ready to be on camera again.

“I mean, everyone is waiting for the return of it,” Dan stated, “And I actually really miss doing the gaming channel.”

Phil smiled, “Sooooo, do you want to start it up again?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Dan responded with a smirk, “I guess to do that, we would have to clean out the gaming room.”

“Ugh, do we have to?” Phil complained, already standing up to head to the room in question.

“I mean, if you want to start the gaming channel up again, we need a place to film videos,” Dan states, turning off his switch following his favourite person across their apartment.

About an hour later the two of them sat on the couch just talking, about everything but nothing.

“So we have room to film the videos in,” Phil stated the obvious, “now we need to film the videos.”

“Oh My God, it's been so long since we have filmed gaming videos,” Dan said looking down at their interlocked hands, noticing the light reflecting off of the ring placed on his left hand, he smirked, “I know what video we could film.”

Phil now looked intrigued by what Dan had thought of, “And what, exactly is that?”

“You seriously don't know what I am thinking,” Dan asked, as he was met by confusion on the other man's face so he elaborated, “The Sims, we left that game with a bunch of unfinished storylines, like how Dab and Evan just got engaged.”

A look of realization spread across Phils' face as he listened to Dan talking.

You see, Dan and Phil had elected to not play the sims until they started the gaming channel back up again, which means that in the sims timeline they had just celebrated ‘Winterfest’.

“So, do you want to film this now, or tomorrow?” Phil says, realizing that it was almost 9, and neither of them had eaten dinner.

“I think we should film it tomorrow,” Dan decided, “but for now can we get some takeaway, I'm really hungry.”

“You read my mind,” Phil says with a smile.

The two men had gotten pizza delivered and had ended up sitting on the couch, both playing animal crossing on their switches. This continued until Dan realized that it was way past midnight, and he started to shut off his switch.

“Babe, I think it is time that we should go to bed,” says Dan, breaking the comfortable silence, nudging Phils side.

“Five more minutes,” Phil whined, “I am catching these fish.”

“Okay, I'll give you five minutes, but after that I am going to leave you here, and I'm going to steal all of the covers.”

This gets Phils attention, “You wouldn’t,” he feigns offence.

“Oh I would,” Dan smirks, before cuddling into Phils shoulder, and looking on at the soft colours of the island of pickle.

In reality, Dan wouldn't actually steal the covers, as it is currently too hot in London, to be bundled up in the covers.

After about five minutes of Dan watching as the tiny animal crossing Phil runs around cleaning up any rubbish that has collected around his island, he finally sees the save menu and the switch screen going dark.

“Okay, time to go to bed,” Phil says, nudging the younger man off of his shoulder standing up.

Stands, grabbing both his, and Phil's phone to take downstairs to charge, As Phil, yet again forgot it on the couch in his sleepy daze.

The pair walk down the stairs to go to the bathroom to brush their teeth, and do their whole night time routine. Over the years they have found ways to execute their separate routines in perfect harmony, as the two men find themselves in their normal rhythm.

After about ten minutes Dan and Phil find themselves in bed, in their natural position of Dan curled into Phils chest with their breathing synchronising to almost make them one form.

“Goodnight Bear,” Phil mumbled into Dan's hair.

“Night you spork.”

t i m e s k i p 

It was now morning, and Dan had woken up first. Not very surprising, considering he barely slept last night. He was just too nervous? excited? He didn't really know what to feel, he was about to film a video for the first time since early june last year. And not just any video, it was a sims video, and it was meant to be a wedding video of Dab and Evan.

It was a surreal thought.

He tried to move to get up, but was pulled back by the arms surrounding him, the arms that reminded him that he was safe, the same arms that had reached into the darkness and pulled him out into the light. He smiled at the thought and cuddled further into Phil, he didn’t care that he was literally sweating his ass off, he wanted to be close to Phil.

Within minutes Phil started to stir, as he was waking up.

“Good morning,” Dan says, as he notices the man holding him reach to grab his glasses from the nightstand. 

As the grip on him is loosened, Dan goes to sit up, only to be pulled back down by Phil, who plants a soft kiss on the younger man's lips.  
“Good morning,” Phil says softly, as they break apart.

“How did you sleep?” Dan asks, in the same hushed tone, like the words are only for the two of them.

“I don't really know,” Phil says, with the most goofy smile, “but I did have an amazing dream.”

“Yeah?” Dan smiled at his fiance's antics “what was it about?”

“Us,” he replied, “just us, we were having our normal lives, and then we filmed a video, and i entirely blanked on the a word for the gaming channel, so then,” 

Dan just laid there smiling over at Phil as he rambled on and on about his dream, and thought that he might be the luckiest person on earth, because he was the only person who got to see Phil like this. 

“Do you want to make breakfast with me before we film?” Dan posed after Phil finished describing his dream, “We could make pancakes.”

Phil’s face lit up as pancakes were mentioned, and he made the effort to get up, and rushed to the kitchen, not even bothering to wait for Dan.

Dan found his way to the kitchen within the next minute, he had found one of Phils shirts and was now wearing the item. The shirt very clearly did not match his black and white aesthetic, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Once he arrived in the kitchen he was greeted by another soft kiss.

“Y’know, I really love seeing you wear colour,” Phil says, gesturing down to the bright blue shirt that Dan has on.

“Don’t get used to it,” Dan jokes, before opening his laptop to pull up a recipe for american pancakes, as he was in the mood for those fluffy stacks of carbs.

“Okay, can you get out the ingredients?” he asks Phil, showing him the ingredient list, “I’ll get the bowls, pan, and the utensils to make this with.”

The two men followed the recipe, putting the flour sugar, baking powder, eggs, oil, milk, and vanilla extract into the bowls and were actually fairly successful at making fluffy pancakes. They had almost burned a few of them because they got so distracted that they had put something on the stove, but, who hasn’t burned a few pancakes before? Dan had also surprised Phil with some whipped cream, nutella, and raspberries. And the two eat their overly sugary breakfast in the “comfort” of the 26 degree weather.

They had gone back downstairs to get changed and make themselves look mildly okay, meaning Dan had gotten out of the blue shirt that he had previously been wearing and put on a more ‘Dan outfit’ of a white shirt and his black and white shorts, while phil was trying to gel his quiff so it wouldn’t fall while they are filming. After they make themselves camera ready, they steal a quick kiss and go back upstairs to the gaming room to give the people what they want.

“Oh my god, we’re about to do this,” Dan says as he sits down in the chair that he has fallen off of so many times, “this is so strange after this long.”

“You ready?” Phil says, setting up the camera in the proper place before turning on the lights.

“I mean it's now or never,” Dan replies, watching as Phil sits back into his chair, “are you gonna do the word?”

“No doubt about it,” the man answers, finally the reality of the situation sets in, he is sat in the room where some of the best moments of his life have happened, with his favourite person, sitting in front of their PC with the sims front page loaded up to a game that ruled their life for almost 3 years.

Dan reaches to turn on the camera, this is it, “3,2,1…”

“Hello DanAndPhilGAMES,” they say in unison, before Phil continues, “Joint Content.”

“That is right,” Dan says, doing some awkward hand gestures, “we are being the gracious dads that are gracing you with some hardcore gaming action.”

“Dan,” Phil says fondly, “we have been filming for less than thirty seconds, and you have already called us dads, and said “hardcore gaming action,” like what?”

“I entirely forgot how to film videos,” Dan says, shaking his head.

“Yeah, but now you better get used to it, because,” Phil looked to the camera, smiling, “the gaming channel is back!!”

“But before we get to that,” Dan says, “I just want to thank all of you sticking through me just not fucking posting for like a whole ass year.”  
“But now you are back, and I'm not letting you go anywhere,” Phil jokes, this feels normal, just them banting and having fun,and a camera just happens to be there.

“I can’t go anywhere,” Dan says, “remember, we are in the middle of a fucking pandemic.”

“Oh right,” Phil responds.

“Should we get on to the game, and stop thinking about the depressing state of the world,” Dan motions to the PC.

“Oh right,” Phil pauses for a second trying to decide what to say, “so today, we are going to be playing the sims!”

Phil makes a mental note to put the fireworks effect when he is editing.

“So you might remember that last time we played this,” Dan continues, “Dab and Evan had just gotten engaged, and Dil had just been abducted.”

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Phil says, mentally cursing himself for not watching the most recent dapg video to refresh his memory on what had just happened, “But you will be pleased to know, that not only did you guys not get to see the Howlters for a year and a half, neither did we.”

“So if i cry when we load up this game,” Dan says, trying to mentally prepare himself for seeing his virtual children for the first time in over a year, “I just hope that you guys are crying alongside me.”

“I am scared to hit play on this,” Phil says, clearly also not prepared for this.

“If you don’t do it now, we will just never be able to bring ourselves to open this game,” Dan tells Phil.

“Okay, I'll do it.”

Phil clicks the big green play button, and the two men watch as it loads to show Willow Creek, and not to anyone's surprise, both of them have to hold back tears as if seeing it for the first time.

“Oh. My. God.” says Dan, taking the mouse from Phil to hover over the owl slide, and the family portrait of Dil, Tabitha, Dalien, and Nuki, appears.

“Hover on the Pancakes house,” instructs Phil, and sure enough, there they are, Bob, Eliza, Erika (the clone), and Pancake Pancakes.

“Okay, we should ACTUALLY go to the Howlters house, before we cry.” Dan says, snapping both of them out of their trance.

While the loading screen shows again they go on to say,

“Okay, so what are we doing in this video?” Phil asks Dan, already knowing the answer to this question.

“The plan was to have a very homosexual wedding,” Dan says with the biggest shit eating grin on his face, “but also, it is currently august 2020, and we haven’t taken down the christmas decorations from 2018.”

“Oh, we should have done that before we started filming,” Phil says, just as the howlter residence appears on their screen, “but we didn’t, so I guess we are going to take down the tree a year and a half later.”

“Wow, that is very christmassy,” Dan recalls, “wait, did we actually get a fucking christmas fireplace for that episode?”

“Oh, right, let's just hope that we didn’t sell our actual fireplace.”

“No phil, you made me sell the actual fireplace to get that,” Dan reminds him.

“Oh, sorry,” Phil apologized before noticing the rainbow tree, “but, look, it’s a gay tree.”

“We didn’t come out in June last year,” Dan says, “we came out when we got our virtual son, a rainbow Christmas tree.”

“Honestly , love that for us.”

“Okay, time to de-christmas this family,” Dan says, going into build mode and starting to sell all of the Christmas decorations.

“Okay, so now we have to replace the fireplace, because you,” Dan says pointing directly in Phils face, “made me sell our actual fireplace, to buy that really dumb christmas one.”

“Hey, it was super festive,” Phil complains, “also, it wasn’t a waste, it brought them so much happiness.”

“Okay fine,” Dan says, with the look on his face which could only be described as ‘heart-eyes Howell’.

“We had a purple fireplace before, so just get one of those.”

“Alrighty,” Dan says, dragging the chicken figurine back onto the mantelpiece, “so now that we have a christmas free living room, now i think we should go play as Dab and Evan and go have their wedding.”

“Good plan,” Phil replies, only kind of freaking out inside. As many fans have pointed out, Dab and Evan remind people a lot of fetus Phan, and now Devan is getting married and Phan will be getting married as soon as they are able to hold a wedding and invite people without everyone being on zoom.

Once Dab and Evan’s apartment has loaded on the screen, Dan speaks up, “Okay, so we should send them to work for like a week to get that, MONEEEYYYYY, and then we should have their wedding.”

“Should we just speed through this footage to when we have enough money for the wedding?” Phil wonders.

“That seems like a good idea,” Dan answers, he turns to the camera, “Future Dan and Phil, start the speed up, NOW.”

“Okay, so this part won’t have audio, so yayyyy,” Phil says, “this is so surreal, like Dab and Evan getting married, I don’t know how to say this, there are so many things happening in my head right now.”

“I know what you mean,” Dan replies, holding every urge to kiss Phil because if he was to speed through the footage they would also be showing that to the world, “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Phil says smiling, “I’m going to go get some ribena, do you want some?”

“Yes please,” Dan replied, “I’ll just continue to keep an eye on these two,” gesturing to the screen.

By the time that Phil returns to him with 2 glasses of ribena, Dan had supervised Devan for a whole day in the game, so now the two had made almost enough for the wedding, so they should only have to wait for another 20 minutes until they would be able to make a BIG GAY WEDDING.

“Are you ready to be heard by the people again,” Dan says, absentmindedly fidgeting with his ring, and a look of realization definitely spread across his face because Phil picked up on his sudden change in emotion.

“I’m ready, but what just happened to you? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I never took off my engagement ring,” Phil immediately realized what that meant.

“Do you want to take it off now, or we could just not mention anything about it, and see if anyone picks up on it,” Phil says with a smirk.

“I think if i took it off now, it would draw EVEN more attention to it,” Dan says, thinking out loud, “also if we just don't mention it, I wouldn’t have to remember to take it off from now on.”

“I’m good with that,” Phil says, leaning over to kiss Dan, and as if reading his mind, “just edit that out.”

“I guess it’s time to have a gay wedding,” Dan says facing back to the camera.

“I honestly forget how to do this,” Phil says looking down to the screen, “Oh, it was under ‘plan social event’”

He watched as Dan scrolled through the events before his eyes landed on the wedding tab.

“Are we ready for the second Dan and Phil play sims wedding?” Dan asks, turning towards his fiance.

“I think we are,” Phil takes the mouse and clicks on the wedding, it was official, Dab and Evan were about to get married, “where should we have the wedding?”

Dan turned to the overly excited man who was smiling from ear to ear, “I have an idea.”

Dan didn’t elaborate, he just flicked through the options until he got to the park in willow creek, the same place that Dil and tabitha had gotten married almost 4 years ago.

While the two men decided how to decorate the park for the ceremony they seem to be so close to each other that they become one being, Phil knows that everyone will be freaking out about all of this, so being close to each other is the least of their worries.

After a few minutes of deciding which colour flowers they should use, and if they actually NEEDED a jukebox, all of the guests for the wedding arrived.

There stood Dil, Tabitha, Dalien, Bob, Eliza, Erika, and even Nuki and Pancake. All dressed to the nines, with everyone there it was time to start the wedding ceremony for real.

Dan clicks on the altar and reads out the button before he clicks it and makes this all official, “Get married to Evan Pancakes, this is it, it is time to make this real.”

“Click it,” Phil says softly, feeling ever so proud of his virtual children (grandchildren?? Who knows)

In the screen there is the visual of the very lovely green background of trees and grass, a pristine white archway, and the two sims wearing tuxedos, speaking simlish saying their vows. Then the animation of the two exchanging rings comes along and Dan can’t help it but let his left hand fly towards his mouth, as it all has come full circle at this point.

It was on that night that Evan had snuck into Dab’s room where they had officially become boyfriends, they had exchanged promise rings, and they had ‘messed around’.

Both Dan and Phil were well aware that the ring on the younger man's hand was proudly on display but neither of them could seem to care as this moment was too precious that they wouldn’t be able to re-film it.

The rest of the filming process seemed to fly by, with people celebrating, eating, dinking, and dancing. The filming of that video ended with Dab and Evan going back to the city to WooHoo as newlyweds.

“And that was Dab and Evans' wedding,” Phil says as Dan pauses and saves the game where it is.

“Who knows what is next in the life of these guys,” says Dan , smiling from ear to ear, “But I know one thing for sure.”

“And what would that be?” Phil poses.

“I know that the gaming channel is officially off hiatus, which means that you guys will be getting a lot more of this face.”

“It also means that we will be continuing the life of the Howlters and the Pancakes, so stick around to see that.” Phil continued.

“Wait, how do I do the endscreen?” Dan asks, genuinely forgetting how to be a youtuber.

Phil laughs slightly shaking his head, and starts to do the endscreen, hoping dan will figure it out, “click over there to see our last video,” he says pointing to his right, “which was in 2018, click in the centre to subscribe to this channel, and click down there” pointing down, “to subscribe to our channels.”

“Don’t expect literally any content on my channel, but you can subscribe,” Dan says with a slight laugh, picking up on how to do this.

“And we will see you next time,” Phil says.

“Bye,” they say in unison.

And with that, the two guys had finished filming their first gaming channel video since December of 2018. Now it was just onto editing it and deciding when to post it, but for now that was enough actual work.

“How do you feel?” Phil asks after turning off the camera and the light.

“What do you mean?” Dan replies knowing full well what Phil meant, so he just continued, “I mean it's kind of weird to be on camera, I guess I'm just out of practice.”

“Well, that was honestly too emotionally draining,” Phil says standing up, “Want to go sit with me on the balcony?”

“Sounds great,” Dan says with a soft smile, standing up to follow the other man.

Once the two men get outside, they are met with both Steve and Scraggy, just sitting, probably waiting for Dan and Phil to feed them.

Dan made sure to fill the feeder with birdseed before sinking into the couch beside Phil, taking his hand. They could hear the happy coos coming from the two birds, who were currently perched on the birdfeeder.

“I can’t believe that we are about to upload that video,” Phil said after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“We haven’t even edited it yet,” Dan says, wiping away the sweat off of his forehead, “but i know what you mean.”

Phil fell back into his comfortable silence, looking down at their intertwined hands, as he absentmindedly stroked his thumb along the back of Dan’s hand, just thinking.

“I know that look on your face,” Dan says, gently taking his free hand up to Phils chin, turning his head up so that they are now locking eyes.

“I just had a thought,” he paused, “When we do finally upload that video, can we take a day away from the internet, like away from twitter, and instagram.”

“Of course,” Dan says, seeing a wave of appreciation spread across Phil’s face, “sometimes the fans can be a little overwhelming.”

“Thanks bear,” Phil smiles back at the man sitting in front of him, “how did i get so lucky that i met you?”

“I ask myself the same thing everyday,” Dan places a soft kiss on Phil’s lips, before pulling back ever so slightly to say, “I love you, so much.”

“I love you more.”

Their words were soft and delicate, yet filled with so much meaning. 3 words, 3 words that were said daily for over a decade, they still never seemed to lose meaning. The words reminded each other that no matter what, they will always have each other, and that was all that they needed. Sure they miss their family, but being together seems way more important. 

Even if they ever confirmed their relationship to the world, no one would ever be able to fully comprehend how strong their love is. And as of that video going up, they had all but confirmed it, because of their shared audience, there is no way that not one of them notices the very clear silver ring placed on Dan's left ring finger.

It’s funny how one piece of metal can signify an unbreakable bond between two souls (not that Dan has a soul, but you know what i mean).

The rest of their day is mildly uneventful, it was mainly just the two men sitting on their couch flipping between playing Mario Kart 8, watching anime, and just scrolling through tumblr for hours on end. There were times where one would find some post or some phanart and show the other, but other than that the only sounds to be heard were the cars going by outside, and the general noise of London.

t i m e s k i p

Again morning came, and today the two men entirely missed it as they had slept in until noon. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence considering that both of them were night owls, and if they ever needed to plan anything, like a zoom meeting or something like that, to just schedule it at a point when they wouldn't be half asleep.

But today there was nothing on the schedule, other than to start to edit the video that they had recorded yesterday.

“Good morning,” Phil says as he watches his fiance slowly wake up, he was well aware it was no longer morning, as he had been scrolling through twitter on his phone for like 20 minutes, waiting for Dan to wake up, but he really didn't care to say good afternoon.

“Ugh,” Dan exclaims while he peels himself off of Phil and gets out of bed to get dressed, it was way too hot in London to be cuddling under a full comforter, yet they had done it anyway.

“What shall we do today?” Phil asks as he too gets up and walks to the wardrobe.

“We could edit that video,” Dan says as he finds a clean black shirt, “or we could put it off for even longer, it honestly makes no difference to me.”

“I like the idea of getting it out as soon as possible,” says Phil, “But should we tell people that we are bringing back the gaming channel? Or just let them entirely freak out.”

“I like the idea of just letting the phandom just flip their shit,” Dan has this mischievous shine in his eye as he says this, “and I REALLY like the idea of just letting our friends to find out at the same time as the internet,”

“You are the type of person who would set the world on fire and just watch as everything fell apart,” replies Phil.

“I am, but you still love me,” Dan says with his cheeky grin.

“I do,” by this point, both of them had gotten sufficiently dressed, and were now just kind of standing in their room talking.

“Wow, I must be super lucky, I get to hear my hubby to be, say I do 2 years before our wedding,” Dan says kind of teasing, taking his arms around the man in questions waist, while Phil brought his arms to be balanced in Dan’s shoulders, with his hands linked at the back of his neck.

“Oh shut up,” as always, this wasn't a harsh thing, more of a teasing remark very often said while Dan was being extra cheeky.

“So, when will I get to hear those words for real,” Dan says, shifting the task at hand from going upstairs to edit, to talking about their future.

“We talked about this,” Phil says, gladly accepting the new topic of discussion, “it will most likely end up being in 2022, you know, after we are able to see our family and friends again.”

“But that is so far from now,” Dan whined, “why can't corona just let us be, this is homophobia.”

Phil laughed at this, but it also reminded him that they were going to edit the sims video, “Okay, so we may not be able to get married just yet, but we did just watch some other gays get married, and now we have to edit the fucking video.”

“Oh fuck,” Dan says being brought back to reality, “let’s go edit this gay wedding video.”

Both men have shit eating grins plastered across their faces and they walk hand in hand out of their shared bedroom, up the stairs, and onto their porch. They had decided to edit out in the fresh air, as it just felt overall more calming, and sometimes the apartment gets so stuffy.

They had found that this video was somehow easier to edit, as they had really wanted to keep their natural reactions to things happening in the game. And really the only part that they had to edit out was where they were clearly not talking about the game, and were in fact talking about the ring that Dan had forgotten to take off. And of course the kiss that followed that conversation also had to be cut out. But in general, they had to cut out far less things, as when they had last done the gaming content, neither of them had been out to the internet, so back then they had to cut out any gay jokes, or anything that could out them before than they were ready.

But one thing that couldn't be edited out, was the very visible ring on Dan's hand. Maybe it was only visible to them because they knew it was there, but if they asked anyone else if they noticed it, that would tell them that they were making gaming content again. And the only other beings that lived with them were Norman and the shrimp, so they were useless (even if Phil went up to Norman's tank to ask for his opinion). They decided there was really no use worrying about it, as they just wouldn't mention it, and their fans could just catch on and know the unspoken facts.

Around 5 pm, they had finished editing the video, fed Steve and Scraggy, and were about to start working on the thumbnail and thinking of the title for this video as Phil heard his phone make a sound, letting him know that someone had texted him. He turned over the phone, to see a text with the name ‘Mum<3’ and opened his phone to see what his mother had texted him about.

Mum: Good afternoon, I hope that you and Dan have been doing well. I am just texting to make sure you are doing good. I really miss seeing you, maybe we could video call sometime, just to check in. Mum xx

Phil read over the text with a huge smile on his face, he has really been missing seeing his family over the last few months, so it's nice to hear from them and just hear that they are doing well.

“What's happening bub?” Dan asks, not moving his gaze from his laptop.

“Oh, mum just texted,” Phil responds while typing out his response, “she's wondering if we would like to video call, do you wanna?”

“You know I would never turn up an opportunity to talk to kath,” Dan says, taking his eyes off the screen to plant a kiss on Phil’s cheek.

“Okay, I'll text her.”

Phil: Hey Mum, it is wonderful to hear from you. Me and Dan are doing great, and we would love to video call.  
Phil: Dan says he would never turn up a chance to talk to you. :) xx

About a minute later, the skype music plays through the speakers of the laptop as Kathrine called them, They immediately picked up and were greeted by Kath smiling back at them.

“Hello Mum,” Phil called into the webcam.

“Hey, how are you,” Dan says.

“Hey boys,” Her smile wide, “I am doing well. It is lovely to see your faces, even if it is through a webcam.”

“It is great to hear from you,” says Dan, “ it has been far too long since i saw you guys.”

Phil just sat and watched as his fiance and his mother talked about the weather, and general life stuff, he had always loved to see how comfortable Dan was around his family.

“So have you two been up to anything exciting recently?” Kath asks, as she always does, usually they will answer saying no, but this time they actually do have something happening.

“Should we tell her,” Phil asks Dan, just loud enough for Kath to hear through the mic, with a new found look of intrigue on her face.

“Yeah, I guess we can,” Dan replies, knowing that he won't be able to keep Phil from talking about this with his mum.

“Well,” Phil pauses for dramatic effect, “We are bringing back the gaming channel.”

Kathrines face on the other side of the screen looked a mix of excitement, surprise, and pride, “I am so happy that you will be making that content again.”

A few years ago, Kathrine had expressed to Dan and Phil just how much she loved watching the gaming videos. “I may not understand exactly what is happening in the games you play, but i love seeing you two just having fun, and being as authentic as you can when there is a camera there,” she had said. 

Then at a different trip, Katherine had taken Dan aside, just basically to give him a hug and tell him, “Even in the videos I can see how happy you make Phil, and the other way around, and that is all a mother could ever want for her child.” That moment had always stuck with Dan, as he finally saw from an outside view how strong a mother’s love for their child can be.

After about half an hour of talking about the gaming channel return, and how Kath has been spending her time in lockdown, they heard a voice off screen call Kathrine for dinner.

“Hey honey, wanna say hi to Phil and Dan?” Kath calls after the voice.

Phil’s dad walks into frame, and looks into the webcam, “Hey boys, how have you been?”

“We’ve been holding up,” Phil replies with a smile, “I would love to stay and chat, but by the sound of it you have made dinner. You don't want to let that get cold.”

“Well, it was nice talking to you, remember to stay in touch,” Kathrine reminded them, “Hope to talk soon.”

“Bye mum,” Phil piped.

“See you soon,” Dan added, before clicking the red phone button to end the call. 

“It was nice to see them,” Phi says, closing the laptop, “but now we should probably also eat some dinner, and then finish with this thumbnail, so then we can upload it tomorrow.”

“I love your thinking.”

“Just my thinking?” Phil jokes.

“Yes, I stayed with you for 11 years because I just love your thinking,” Dan replies with his ICONIC sarcasm.

“Thanks,” Phil says, matching his tone.

t i m e s k i p

With the video edited, the thumbnail made, and their stomachs full, they call the day a huge success.

During dinner, Dan had an amazingly devious plan, before they went to bed that night they would both tweet something weirdly cryptic, hinting to a video, watch as everyone tries to decide if they are actually going to do something, or if they are just clowning again. Then the next day as they upload the video and tweet about it, just both turn off their phones, and not answer any calls, texts, or tweets from their friends or fans.

So that is exactly what they do.

Daniel Howell  
@danielhowell  
tomorrow.  
16 Aug 20 23:31

Phil Lester  
@AmazingPhil  
12.  
16 Aug 20 23:32

And then the two men found themselves nicely sheltered away from all of the chaos that they had surely just caused.

t i m e s k i p

Morning came along and sure enough when Phil had opened twitter at 10:30 after waking up to the alarm he had set last night, he found a whole clusterfuck of the entire phandom joining together trying to theorize what was about to happen, many of which actually guessed correctly.

Today was the day, the day that DanAndPhilGAMES would officially be back, the day dan would be back to making content again, the day that most of their fans would pick up on the ring, the day everything changed.

Over the next hour and a half he and Dan typed out their tweets and tumblr posts about the video, and set the video to start uploading, while otherwise freaking out internally, externally, and eternally.

Dan’s phone made an aggressively loud sound, the alarm. It was now 11:59. One minute left. 

“!0, 9, 8, 7, 6,” Phil says counting down the seconds.

“5, 4, 3, 2.” Dan continued.

“ONE.” they say together.

“The video is live, do your tweet,” Dan instructed.  
This was real, the video was public and anyone could see it. They were back.

“Okay, now turn off your phone,” Phil instructed, turning his own off.

“We did it,” Dan says, leaning over to Phil, kissing him.

And exactly as expected, the internet freaks out. But Dan and Phil stay on their couch, in their living room, in their apartment, safe in each others arms, safe from the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i would be happy to continue the story of this fic and the aftermath of them breaking the internet if anyone would like to read that.


End file.
